March for Life Experience

 January 16, 2020 | Lucia McLaughlin           

I am here to talk about abortion.  Or really, to share my experience at last year’s March for Life in Washington D.C and hopefully influence you to join us next year. Now…. whenever someone talks about abortion, things can get testy.  Let me just start off by saying, I am not here to shame or judge anyone or to make anyone feel uncomfortable. But I do want to share with all of you what attending the March for Life has done for me and why I go.  

By way of background, my parents raised me Catholic.  My parents and my faith taught me to value life at all stages or at any age- the elderly, sick, lonely, or homeless. In particular at the March for Life, in the tiniest embryo. I have been taught that life is always a gift, regardless of its inconvenience or complication. My parents have given me a great example of this. My Mother was an only child and my dad was the eldest of a busy family with ten children.  My mother said her years as a child had been boring and as such, always wanted to have a big family. Having ten children isn’t easy. There are lots of rough patches along the way.  And there
were times she was pregnant and wondered whether she could do it all again. But looking back…where would she have wanted to stop having children? Yes. they could have stopped at 4 or 5 (then I wouldn’t exist).  But which sibling could I have lived without? Caroline, who is fourteen and is already one of the best listeners I know? My youngest sister Gianna Beretta (named after a Catholic pro-life saint), who is nine and brings laughter wherever she goes? They accepted new life as it came. I attend the March for Life to honor and support my family tradition and my faith.  

But you don’t need to be Catholic to be pro-life. I recently learned that Eminem aka Marshall Mathers is pro-life. Look up his song with Ed Sheeran, called “River.”  Justin Beiber, is pro-life and not Catholic. In fact, when asked about his stance on the case of rape he famously, some say scandalously,  replied in the Rolling Stone magazine, “Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything in life happens for a reason.  I certainly don’t know the reason.  The baby doesn’t know the reason.  But new life always has a reason.”  And it was Mahatma Ghandi (not catholic but pro-life and a Hindu) who once said, “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its
weakest members.”  

So why do 300,000 people, every year, trudge to Washington DC in January in what some have called the largest continuous peaceful and selfless demonstration in the history of our country? I mean this thing is bigger and has been going on longer than Coachella… My mom went to the March for Life when she was in high school which was a long  time ago. Why do we do it? Why do we go to Washington D.C? Simple.  We go to add our voice to the debate and to ensure, like Ghandi says,  that our government continues to be great by remembering its commitment to our weakest members.  

During last year’s trip in D.C., we went to a Christian concert that was part of the March For Life program. Laura Conlan and I didn’t know most of the songs the band was singing and a woman who was a chaperone from another school noticed this. She tapped my shoulder and proceeded to teach Laura and I the “Jesus Dance,”  which seemed childish at first, but then we got into it and let’s just say we know it by heart now. This small act of kindness taught me the importance of a community that celebrates together and takes action together. The March for Life is an event that has the ability to restore one’s faith in humanity and give people a sense of
community larger than any school or workplace.  

During the March for Life I also talked to people from our own school who I wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to otherwise. For example, while we were walking around in D.C. in January, Javier who is from Mexico, struggled with the cold and said to me through his scarf which covered almost his entire face, “How do you live in Alaska, you must be crazy!” (I get that a lot)  Javier and I bonded over our differences with the weather and how I loved the cold whereas he clearly despised it.

This year’s theme for the March for Life is Life Empowers: Pro-Life is Pro-Woman. I tell you this because one aspect that particularly surprised me during the March for life last year was the number of pro-life feminists participating. They held signs with phrases like “A true feminist would fight for the rights of unborn women” and “I march for the next generation of women.” I was pleased with the idea that women’s rights and the rights of the unborn could go hand and hand. In this respect, I feel as though I became a feminist at the march for I believe, along with other pro-life feminists, that abortion hurts women more than it benefits them.  

The March for Life allowed me to connect with new people in a common, selfless cause. A cause that exists and endures because it is morally right. I learned that to be pro-life does not mean you are anti-feminist and it actually reveals the opposite; that pro-life is pro-woman. I continue to attend the March for Life to support the greatest the gift we have: human life And I want to help protect it for all of us – for our future.  

Thank you for listening, and I hope you will consider joining us next year. If you are not going next week, your thoughts and prayers would be very much appreciated and if you are interested in learning the Jesus Dance, I would be happy to teach you.

Thank you